47 6 A. D. 1658. 



following, delivered it up with all its forts into the hands of Sir "William 

 Loclchart, for the protedor. This great acquifition occafioned no fmall 

 jealoufy in the Dutch, who were very far from being pleafed to fee 

 England thereby rendered mafters of both fides of the Channel. More- 

 over, though France at this time yielded it to Cromwell for the fake of 

 his prefent friendfhip, in affifting to the greater enfeebling of Spain, and 

 the confequent raifing of her own power, yet the French court foon 

 forefaw how dangerous Dunkirk would prove in other hands than their 

 own, and more efpecially in the pofFelTion of England, even then the 

 firft maritime potentate of Europe ; wherefor they foon found means, 

 (four years after) to get it furrendered to them. 



Though clocks and clock-makers were introduced into England at 

 ieafl; as early as the year 1368, yet we have not difcovered either the 

 time or the certain place in which they were firfl made ; as is alfo the 

 cafe of feveral other inventions. Nurenberg in Germany has often 

 been named as the moft probable place of the invention of watches, (or 

 rather the revival of them about 70 years ago) though I do not find any 

 certainty thereof. The firft pendulum clock is faid to have been in- 

 vented by Huygens in the preceding year, 1 657 ; yet others afcribe it 

 to Galileo. Be this as it may, we may be aflhred that the prefent 

 watches are of a much later invention than clocks, though they, in faft, 

 were but a neceflary confequence of the other. The Emperor Charles V 

 was the firft who had a watch ;^ though fome fay it was only a fmall 

 table clock. Others fay, that emperor had a watch, of fome kind or 

 other, in the jewel of his feal-ring. Spring pocket watches were the 

 production of this century. Foreigners afcribe the invention to Huy- 

 gens, but the Englifh to Dr. Hooke, about this year. It has fince been 

 brought to greater perfedion in England than anywhere elfe. 



This year the Swedifti fleet befieging Copenhagen, where the Danifti 

 king then was in great diftrefs, the Dutch fleet under Admiral Opdam 

 defeated that of Sweden, and thereby feafonably relieved the Danifti 

 king and his capital city. The next year Admiral De Ruyter joined 

 the Danifti fleet, and defeating that ot Sweden, brought about a pacifi- 

 cation at Rofchild between thefe two northern crowns, through the me- 

 diation of England and France. 



1659. — Yet in the following year (1659) the Swedes, under their king 

 Charles Guftavus, were fo fuccefsful in a frefli war againft Denmark as 

 to oblige that crown to reftore the fine province of Scania, or Schonen, 

 to Sweden, after Denmark had been in pofleflion of it for three cen- 

 turies. This conceflion threw much weight into the fcale of Sweden ; 

 but feems, however, to have reduced both crowns nearer to an equili- 

 brium than before, with reference to the European ftates trading into 

 the Baltic fea. 



The Danifti court having farther diftrefled the trade of other nations 



